


The Catch

by yuletide_archivist



Category: The Forbidden Game - L. J. Smith
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:30:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Julian is woken up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Catch

**Author's Note:**

> Written for teinte

 

 

Ah. This is, um. Part one? The second and final part will be done by New Years. But for now- Merry Christmas! Note One: there are a lot of similes and metaphors and dashes in this thing because, well, that's how LJ Smith wrote the books and I tried to keep to that a little. So it's on purpose! Note Two: I don't know HTML so all the italics have been removed. ***

The first thing Julian thought of when he woke was of golden hair, pure like sunlight.

"Hear me! I call you, I call you, heed to my-" A pause, a cough. "Heed to my will! From darkest shadows, from betwixt and between-"

Jenny, thought Julian. So beautiful...

"I call upon you to bind into a contract! By my blood I-" Another racking cough. "I offer a bargain!"

Julian opened his eyes.

There was no shining gold, no eyes as green as the purest of emeralds. Just darkness and smoke and the smell of the world burning. Jenny, thought Julian.

"With this contract, I offer my- oh, my God. Oh, my God."

Julian turned his head and looked at the summoner. It was a woman, with dark hair (not Jenny) and scared eyes. There was blood crusted at her temple, sliding down the side of her face. She knelt on the ground before him, one hand on a body lying by her knees and the other resting on her stomach, already large with child.

"It worked," she whispered.

The room was not small, though already the choking smell of smoke was filling into the far corners. A fire, Juilan thought, from down below. He sat in a summoning circle with the runes etched into the floor. The symbols looked hastily drawn in dim light from the windows.

On the skin of the body before the circle, Julian's true name was carved lightly with much more care.

The woman cleared her throat of the smoke and looked quickly at the closed door behind her. "I have summoned you from the darkness, creature of Shadow." She looked at him, her mouth firming into a strong line. "I desire to strike a bargain."

"A bargain," Julian whispered. He could not see Jenny anywhere. She was gone. He had faded from existence and now she was gone.

"Yes." The woman's hand tightened on the prone body in front of her. "I ask for your protection. My family is being hunted, we need-" She took a breath. "I ask, under contract, under the law that governs you, that you protect my brother, my child and I from those who wish us harm."

"You remade me," Julian whispered as her stared into the woman's eyes, "just for this? Do you have any idea what you are asking for? You should not meddle in things you do not understand."

The woman raised her chin. Julian noticed that the body with his name carved into it (the sacrifice, a life for a life) still breathed, though faintly. "I understand. What will it take to seal the bargain?"

Julian stood. 

He had been written out of existence, but he lived once more. He had given his life for Jenny, his beautiful, precious Jenny, and then passed into the ephemeral world of illusions and dreams. 

Until this woman had brought him back, had had him confined in this circle that was as good as a web of chains locking him to her will.

It's never a good idea to lock up a predator, Julian mused. They don't like it very much.

"What will it take to make a bargain?" the woman repeated. Julian didn't miss the note of desperation in her voice that was rising as fast as the smoke that filled the room. Julian had lost Jenny, the center of his existence, the only thing he had ever cared about. She wasn't there, he didn't know where she was, but even before his `death' he had let her go. He had promised that the Shadows would never hurt her again, even though he would not be there to protect her.

Jenny, the girl who taught him to love.

"You wanted to prove to me how bad you are, but I'm not buying that."

Julian felt the corner of his lip tilt up. We'll see, Jenny. We'll see.

"Tell me how you came buy my name. Tell me how you were able to summon me back." Julian reached out a hand. "And help me find and protect those whom I choose. Do this, and I will protect you and yours."

The woman blinked. "That's it?"

"That's it."

Narrowed, suspicious eyes. "What's the catch?"

Julian kept his hand out, right up against the barrier of the circle that he could not pass. "The catch is that if you don't make a bargain, I don't think you'll get out of this alive, so you don't have much room to argue technicalities. Do we have a deal?"

The woman swallowed. The air was getting rather thick, Julian noticed. That can't be good for the baby. "You swear by your word that you will protect my family and I from those who wish us harm? And that you will not harm us yourself?" 

Julian smiled. "I swear it. Now, do we have a deal?"

The woman reached out for Julian's hand.

Then she grabbed it and tugged it past the barrier of the circle to land on the carved skin of the body between them. The cut marks burst into light and Julian's eyes widened in surprise. The body beneath his hand took a sudden, heaving breath, it's eyes, the boy's eyes, opened and looked straight at Julian.

"We have a deal," the woman hissed.

***

Jenny Thornton liked coming back home for the holidays. She would have liked it better, though, if her younger brother would spend less time on his video games and more time helping put up the Christmas tree. 

"Joey! I'm sure the armies of Maldor can wait a few minutes for you to put up some tinsel."

"They're agents of a secret society bent on taking over the world by turning people into zombies and I just got to the mansion where- no! no! Damnit, they were hiding in the bushes!"

Jenny looked over from where she was trying to put up garland by the kitchen doorway. "You died? Does that mean you can come help your sister now?"

"What, are you kidding?" Joey said without ever looking away from the TV screen. "I know where they are now, I gotta get past them..."

Jenny rolled her eyes. 

"Everything okay in here?" Jenny's mother asked as she stepped out of the kitchen. "Oh, that looks lovely, Jenny. Do you need any help putting the rest of the decorations up?"

"Well," Jenny smiled at her mother, "it might be helpful if certain teenage boys would get up off the couch and lend a hand with-"

Joey's cell phone rang. He paused the game, looked at the cell phone screen and said, "It's Cam, I gotta go-" And was out the door in a flash.

Jenny and her mother stood there and blinked. "At least he's not playing that game anymore," Jenny's mother said, shaking her head as she walked back in the kitchen.

Jenny frowned after Joey as she heard the front door slam shut. She knew Cam and Joey were friends, though maybe not as close as Jenny and Cam's older sister were. Why would a call from Cam make Joey run out like that? 

Jenny walked to the front of the house and opened the door to check on her brother. He wasn't right outside the door or even in the front law. Jenny stepped out of the house.

There, by the garage. Jenny could hear Joey talking.

I shouldn't spy on him; it's an evasion of privacy, thought Jenny. But the sides of Jenny's fingers were tingling with unease.

Jenny inched closer. 

"-house burned, so what? It was probably an accident, what with all of those damn candles around," Joey was saying. He paused for a moment and then, "Whatever, I don't see what that has to do with any of us." Another pause.

"Just let it go, Cam." 

"Because it's crazy, you're crazy and you should never have talked to those people in the first place!"

"No, Cam. Just no. This whole...thing... has gone far enough, it's not funny anymore."

"I did not say that, Cam." Pause. "Well, sue me for being the sane one! You and Kiah are going crazy with this- I don't care if Courtney agrees with you! It's insane! And I don't care if it was my sister who told you about it in the first place! They were all acting weird back then, it was just stupid stories they told us-"

Jenny heard Joey take a breath. "Look. The place burned down, there was no one inside, it's over. And you don't need to go back there; it's all probably rubble anyway. Just...just stay at home with your folks. Buy Kiah a present for Christmas that isn't a voodoo doll. We can talk about this later, okay?"

"Alright. Bye."

Joey closed his phone with a sigh. As he turned the garage corner to walk back to the house, Jenny stepped out of the shadows and grabbed his shoulder.

He jumped about a mile into the air. "What- Jenny! What are you doing out-" 

Jenny kept her grip on her brother's shoulder. "Joey, what's going on? What was Cam calling you about?"

Joey's eyes were wide for a second as he looked at Jenny. He was taller than her now.

Then he shook off her arm. "What, were you spying on me? Jeez, I can't believe you did that, Jenny. It's none of your business anyway." He walked to his old, beat up car.

"Joey!" Jenny called out to him, but he had already reached the car and was getting into the driver's seat. Jenny watched as he pulled out of the driveway and drove down the street.

Something was wrong. She didn't know what, but something inside her told her that something was very wrong.

***

Jenny picked up the house phone and dialed Summer's number.

Jenny didn't know Cam Parker-Pearson that well, all things considered. He was Summer's younger brother and Summer was a good friend of Jenny's. Most of what Jenny knew about Cam came from things Summer would complain about when the two girls talked. She knew that Cam had started dating Kiah Eliade, another younger sibling of a close friend of theirs. Jenny was pleased when she heard that news- it seemed fitting to her that the bonds between Jenny's circle of friends could spread to a younger generation. 

One thing did trouble her about Cam, though. A couple of years ago, Summer had called Jenny sounding worried. Summer, who still lived at home, had found a box of strange books in the house that belonged to Cam. Those symbols were in there, Jenny, Summer had whispered.

Jenny knew what symbols Summer had meant. 

She told Summer to put Cam on the phone. Then Jenny tried to tell Cam, as calmly and seriously as she could, that there were things in the world that people shouldn't meddle with. Things that could be dangerous. That Cam should stay away from them.

Cam had said he understood, and that he wouldn't look for any more books. He had just been curious.

Jenny had thought that that would be it. When she heard that Cam had gotten a girlfriend, she had been relieved, thinking the practical Kiah would be a good influence on Cam and distract him from... whatever it was he was thinking about. 

They could be in trouble, Jenny thought. Maybe that wasn't what Joey and Cam were talking about, though. Maybe it was something else, some argument between friends that had nothing to do with games and shadows and magic.

Jenny's little fingers were still tingling as the phone rang for the Parker-Pearson household.

Summer and Cam's father answered the phone. Jenny asked to speak to Summer and after a pause, he said he would get her. Jenny gave a little wince; years after the fact, things were still strained between Summer's friends and her parents. Sometimes it seemed like they still blamed the tight knit group a little for not telling everything they knew about Summer's disappearance in high school.

Water under the bridge, Jenny told herself. Focus on the now.

"Jenny?"

"Summer! Hey, is Cam there by any chance?"

"No, he's not at home right now. Why, is something the matter?" came Summer's voice.

"I don't know." Jenny chewed on her lip for a second. "Summer, do you remember that box of books you told me Cam was looking at a while back? Did he keep them by any chance?"

"No, I don't think-"

That was all Jenny heard before the ring on her hand started growing warm.

Jenny stared at the ring in shock as the warmth increased around her finger. She could swear she almost saw it glowing.

Jenny dropped the phone and ignored the small voice coming from it. All her attention was on the gold ring that she never, ever took off.

She tried to take it off then. Tried to twist and pull the ring away from her finger, but it wouldn't move. 

Jenny sank to her knees beside the phone. She heard Summer's voice calling for her, but it seemed very far away. The ring wouldn't come off. It wouldn't come off.

Jenny sat on the floor and stared into the shadows. She did not feel afraid. 

 


End file.
